


cat stickers and phones

by seawebs



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Kissing, Platonic Love, Romantic Friendship, growing into the evil bisexuality trope like hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seawebs/pseuds/seawebs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things, Taylor learns, you have to figure out for yourself. Thankfully, you get a little help from your friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cat stickers and phones

**Author's Note:**

> I never meant to write this, but then I spent too much time in the taylor tag on ontd and it happened anyway. Sorry not sorry. Unbeta'ed as hell, which I am sorry about.

Taylor's phone is kind of sacred. It's also secret. It is covered in cat stickers, and some of the buttons are worn down, while others have stopped functioning completely. Taylor will never switch it out, though, because this phone is home to a lot of memories. She doesn't hold on to much, Taylor's life is too transient for that, but her phone. It's her Achilles heel. 

Taylor switches her password obsessively, and she never ever hands it to anyone. "It's not that I don't trust you," she tells Harry, when he offers to type in his number on their second date, "but.." 

She does trust him. She trust him enough to call him in the middle of the night, to ask him very secret, very important questions. She never stays on the line long enough for him to pick up, she chickens out every time. But she trusts him. 

And then Taylor's phone breaks. It won't turn on. She asks her assistant for help, who tells her to plug it into a socket and see if charging it will make it wake up, but there's nothing. Not even a flicker. Taylor panics. Taylor has a new phone fifteen minutes later, but it's not right. There are so many memories on her cat sticker covered phone with sticky buttons, so much music and so much video and so many dumb pictures of people she likes, things Taylor has documented meticulously and carefully over the past years, and it's private, so she can't take it to the shop without waking up the next morning to see all of her secrets spilled out onto the internet, but she also can't not bring it to someone. She can't lose all of it. 

"I can't, Karlie, what do I _do_? 

Karlie shrugs, and smiles up at Taylor from where she's been sprawled on the couch all morning. Her hair is messy and there's cat hair all over her navy sweater, and she's eating something bright orange that looks absolutely disgusting. It's stuck between her teeth. 

"Is that dried carrot?" Taylor asks. 

"Mango! D'you want some?" Karlie lifts up her butt to rummage around underneath it for the package. Her body is capable of doing some really weird things, but Taylor can appreciate the way her stomach tenses. Karlie works out. They should work out together, but Taylor isn't sure if kick-boxing is really for her, and also, Taylor knows she sucks at anything gym-related. So maybe not.

"And I don't know T," Karlie goes on. "Ask tumblr?" 

So Taylor does. She has to download a browser onto her phone first, though, after she unsuccessfully tries to befriend the tumblr mobile app. It sucks more than running on the treadmill, which is legitimately scary. She logs in (and changes her password on tumblr. Just in case. You can never be too sure) and opens a new text.

She's still standing in front of Karlie, who is still lounging on the couch chewing. Karlie is watching her, and she's grinning wide. Her upper lip disappears when she does her happy smile, which should look dorky, but is endearing instead, like she's three years old and never had to pracise smiling in her bathroom mirror. Taylor can see her over the rim of her phone, so she hmmms at her questioningly. 

"You should sit down." Karlie motions at the couch, and also at her body, which covers all of it. There is literally no space for Taylor to squeeze into, because Karlie is tall. Like, really tall. For someone so skinny she can take up a lot of space, which is a good quality for a model to have, but it is not as cool when it's couch-related. 

Taylor gives her an unimpressed look and sweeps her eyes up and down Karlie's body. And also up and down the couch, which is probably what Karlie picks up on, because she pulls her legs up. Taylor sits down heavily on the few inches that have freed up, and leans against Karlie's legs. Her arm fits perfectly over Karlie's knees, and she can support her elbow while she's typing. 

Her tumblr post isn't inspired, she simply asks if anyone has any advice for her situation, and adds a gif of grumpy cat that she's downloaded as soon as she got this crappy new phone that is way too shiny, with buttons that work too well and don't stick at all. There have got to be cats in a phone if there are no cats on it. 

She realises Karlie is laughing and quickly schools her face into an expression that isn't an imitation of the grumpy cat gif. It's not hard, because Taylor has a hard time trying not to smile when looking at Karlie. "Done!" she says. Karlie smiles, and does a flawless sit-up, which Taylor isn't jealous of at all. And while Karlie's in close proximity of her own knees, which have Taylor's arm propped up on it, which has Taylor's chin propped up on it, she gives Taylor a smacking kiss on the forehead. 

"Cheer up, grumpy," she laughs, "We're gonna go pick up some cat stickers!" 

\---

Karlie knows her way around New York like no one else Taylor knows. Sometimes Taylor thinks that's not so hard, seeing that Taylor doesn't know too many people who live here, but then. Karlie doesn't exactly live here, either. She's jetting around just like Taylor is: New York one minute, Milano the next, a photo shoot in L.A. and a fashion show in Paris. It's why their living arrangement is so perfect: They are never stuck with each other for long enough to grow exasperated at the closeness, but the apartment feels lived in, and Meredith doesn't get lonely anymore. Taylor's brother is lovely, but he's allergic, so he'll go in and feed her when Taylor and Karlie are both gone but he won't pet Meredith like she's used to. Taylor's mum would, but Taylor is more hesitant to fly her in for cat sitting. Living with Karlie is great, and Taylor doubts they'd get sick of each other even if they saw each other every day for years on end. 

Plus, Taylor enjoys having someone to come home to who will hang out, cuddle, and talk about her trip. She thinks Karlie feels the same, or she probably would have kept living in her fancy model flat share. Sometimes Taylor wonders when Karlie will move out to live with her boyfriend, because they've been together for a while, and their relationship is rock-solid, but she doesn't want to ask. It might seem like she doesn't want Karlie there, and that's an impression she doesn't want to create. Not ever.

Karlie leads her to a tiny boutique. She's confident in finding her way, and since they're both in casual clothes and Taylor's publicist hasn't alerted the paps, they manage to sneak through the neighbourhood. It's nice. Karlie grabbed Taylor's hand on the way out, and neither of them are wearing gloves, so she can feel how warm Karlie's hand it. Taylor's other hand is kinda freezing, so she pulls it up into the sleeve of her sweater. The boutique sells everything from hair products to postcards. The postcards are hand-drawn by locals artists, and they are a bit bizarre, but mostly really cute. There is jewelry, too, glass pendants and amulets with feathers or dandelions inside.

But most importantly, there are stickers. They are done in the style of the postcards, probably drawn by the same artist, and there are a bunch of cartoon-y cats in funny yoga-like poses. The cats are pink and green and blue, and the background is a baroque gold. They are absolutely lovely, and they will look perfect collaged on Taylor's phone. Taylor looks as Karlie. Karlie is looking at a pin with a rhino on it. The rhino, Taylor can barely see, has a speech bubble. She can't read what it says, but she knows she'll buy it anyway.

Maybe she'll pin it to Karlie's sports bag when she's not looking, surprise her like that. Karlie likes surprises, which is why she constantly drags Taylor off into little adventures. She surprises Taylor with experiences, and Taylor would love to do the same. But she doesn't know how, because sometimes it seems like Karlie has been everywhere and seen everything, and Taylor is constantly overwhelmed with how much of the world she hasn't seen. So instead she brings home little mementos and hides them in Karlie's room, and accepts thank you kisses on her cheek while trying not to blush and fluster.

\---

Harry is taking too long to pick up his phone, and Taylor doesn't like texting a whole lot, so she checks tumblr instead. She's got a ton of replies in her ask box, and even more reblogs. Some of them are advice, others are sympathetic gifs. A few are comments on how unbelievable it is that a rich as hell pop star can't pay their staff to fix this kind of stuff for them. Taylor ignores those, like she ignores the ones that call her dumb. She reads a few other posts she's tagged in instead, watches a video of a girl singing along to Out Of The Woods perfectly, which she reblogs immediately, because damn. That girl can't be older than sixteen and she's really good. Taylor makes sure to compliment her, too.

Then she goes back to the advice on her phone, because maybe she can actually try some of it. One person tells her to plug it into her computer and to try to access the memory card like that, but the phone doesn't show up as plugged in on her laptop, and Taylor is at a loss. Somebody else says to take out the memory card and place it into another phone. It sounds like good advice, because that would mean there is no data transfer, so it would be impossible to steal Taylor's data.

Her phone rings.

Taylor startles and drops it to the floor next to her desk, and has to scramble under it to pick it up. Thankfully, Harry is more patient than Taylor is, because when she picks up with a slightly frazzled "Hey, hi, sorry, ah" he just laughs his slow molasses laughter and says "Hi, Taylor" like this is what usually happens when they talk. It really isn't. Usually Taylor is way more collected, but it's been a weird day.

"So what's going on?" Harry asks, and Taylor feels set up. She's been calling Harry for a purpose, yes, but now that she's actually reach him, she doesn't know how to ask.

"Good, yes, perfect," she says instead, and feels like a liar. "My phone died, so I had to get this new one. I wasn't sure you'd pick up."

Harry laughs again, and Taylor relaxes a little bit. She doesn't try to get up, and leans her back against the side of her desk instead. The knobs of her drawers dig into the groove between her shoulders, but that's okay for now. She'll move when it gets more uncomfortable.

"Oh no T, don't worry. You have your old number still." His voice sounds amused, like he looses his phone every week and knows that you get to keep your number when you're a celebrity. It reminds Taylor that she should really change her number. Chances are, this one is going to get leaked soon, and she'll have fans calling at all hours of the day, and maybe somebody will try to hack her new phone. Oh no. "Oh no. What if my old phone broke because someone hacked it?" Harry laughs again, but that's not helpful.

"No, listen, what if somebody has all of my music and photos and stuff, Harry, seriously-"

Harry, because he's more down-to-earth practical than his attitude suggests, calms her down. She'll task her assistant with removing the memory card from her phone tomorrow, anyway. Might be too late, but better to be sure. It doesn't have to be logical, it just has to feel right.

"So what have you been ringing me about, really?" Harry asks, and interrupts Taylor's spiral into another panic.

Taylor stops breathing for a beat, because she doesn't know what to say. She lets out a long breath, slowly, to calm down more. "Well, you know how-" she tries, and gets stuck, but when Harry just "hmmmms" encouragingly, she continues. "You know how I've been living with Karlie for a few months now?" she asks.

"Well, it is great. I love it so much, it's perfect. Today we got stickers for my new phone, and they are perfect, and she basically knew exactly what I would like. And she's so smart, Harry. She's all tall and stunning and so, so good at what she does, and she's so kind. She loves Meredith as much as me, and Meredith probably loves her more, and her relationship is everything I want from a relationship, and I just. Harry."

Taylor stops, and breathes, and Harry is calm on the other end of the line. On the other end of the world, really. Taylor doesn't really know where he is, and she hadn't thought to ask.

"Harry, you are close friends with guys, right?"

Harry says "yeah" like it's affirmation, and encouragement, and affection all wrapped in one.

"Did you ever want to kiss them?"

He doesn't laugh. She kind of expected him to, because that is what people do when they think Taylor Swift and kissing girls in one sentence.

Harry doesn't laugh. Harry makes a thinking noise, and Taylor knows not to push him. She's said what she's needed to say, and if she gives Harry a minute or two to order his meandering thoughts, he'll. Well, he'll give her good advice. She's learned while they were dating, that if you want Harry to actually talk to you, you have to be willing to sit in silence sometimes. She doesn't mind, because that's how she writes her songs: Everything good to her has started with a moment of silence.

"I have, yes." Harry finally answers. He says it with a finality that is so sincere, and so sweet to her, that she feels fondness welling up her chest.

"Oh." she says.

"Well, do you want to, like, kiss her kiss her, or do you want to cuddle-kiss her?" Harry asks, and she has to smile, because only Harry would make that distinction.

"I don't know." she answers him, and thinks that maybe, she'd have to try it to know for sure.

Harry laughs again, but she knows it's not malicious. "I didn't know either," he says, "but I figured it out real quick. I dunno, Tay, I don't think it's a bad thing to want to kiss someone, especially if you're that close, and they like you back. Kissing is like. It doesn't have to be a big thing? To be good? You know? It can be just. It's hard to explain, like. Sometimes, when Niall feels like everything is too much, we'll just sit somewhere quiet, and we'll talk a bit, and have a cuddle, and sometimes we'll kiss. And you know I love Niall, but it's not like. It's not sexual in that moment, like, I don't want to do those things with him. Or maybe I do, potentially, but not now, not while the band is going on, and we're all stressed and everything is chaotic. It's better to be friends, and I love him, and there is no person I can be closer with. And we both sometimes want other people, and when that happens we don't kiss, or we talk to those people."

Harry hadn't mentioned this. Before. When they were. She'd wondered about the peculiar closeness between all of the guys, but she hadn't thought about it too much. And it hits Taylor, that she wouldn't have minded, because it sounds so lovely. It sounds just like friendship but closer. Romantic, but not a relationship in the Hollywood sense. Maybe harder to navigate, but maybe easier.

"Taylor?"

"Yeah, Harry?"

"Are you mad?"

"No. I'm happy for you."

Harry is silent again, and so is Taylor. His breathing is a thin line of comfort that Taylor wraps around herself, and she thinks that maybe, relationships don't have to be defined as clearly as she'd thought when she was younger. Dating is dating is dating, but you can go on a date with a friend and have the best time of your life, where going with your partner would have been stressful and maybe not the right choice.

"I think I need to talk to Karlie," Taylor says, and she's so calm. She smiles when she hears Harry's nod because his hair is brushing against the receiver. She hadn't noticed that before, but now she can't unhear it. It's nice, it gives Harry a physicality that she misses sometimes. She misses him.  

"Yeah, ok," he says, "I'm gonna go join the boys for early lunch, I think."

"That sounds lovely. Harry," Taylor isn't sure how to say this, but, "Thank you. You're the best friend I could hope for."

She'll call him in the morning, when he's finished his show, and congratulate him on a job well done. They can talk about his trip then, and how the boys are doing, and what is going on in his life. He's a good friend, so Taylor needs to step up her game a little bit.

"You're fantastic, T. Love you." Harry says, before the call disconnects.

Taylor smiles at the phone for a moment before getting up. Her back hurts, and she groans as she gets up, rubs her back where it is sore.

\---

Karlie is on her bed in yummy sushie pajamas. She's reading a book that is disturbingly thick and the author's name is disturbingly hard to pronounce. It might be Russian. She turns from her belly onto her back when Taylor knocks and sticks her head it. Her comforter is tangled around her waist and her hair is a worse mess than this morning, but she's brushed her teeth, so there's no mango stuck in it this time. Taylor loves her a whole lot.

"Hey, what's up?" Karlie asks, and lifts up her comforter invitingly in the same breath. Taylor doesn't run to her, she doesn't. She moves in a gracefully appropriate tempo that totally leads her falling head first into Karlie's bed, and half onto Karlie's stomach. The paperback hits her in the head, but it's a perfect hug nonetheless.

"I talked to Harry for a bit," Taylor says, and she knows she's deflecting, but she figures it's fine. "We talked about my phone, and I mentioned you, and he's sending his love."

Taylor can't see Karlie's face, but she can feel her rib cage under her cheek, which contracts when Karlie says "He's a good guy, that Styles."

She's not judgmental, Karlie. It makes Taylor feel young and dumb and terribly close-minded sometimes, but she is learning. And making up for her mistakes. Yet, Karlie surprises her:

"You guys thinking about getting back together?"

Taylor leans up at that, and sits next to Karlie cross-legged. She can see a mix of emotions cross Karlie's face, but she's not sure how to read them. Surprise, maybe? Happiness, too, since she's smiling. Kindness, always, and understanding, definitely.

"Nah," Taylor says, "just friends. We were talking about relationships, though. He explained about Niall, you know."

Karlie leans up as well, scoots her butt backwards, so she's sitting opposite Taylor, with her legs crossed as well. Mirroring her. She's smiling.

"Can you tell me?"

Taylor thinks about it for a moment, but she knows she can trust Karlie. And Harry wouldn't mind, she knows. Harry wouldn't have told her, if he didn't think she's tell Karlie. Otherwise the point of their conversation must have been completely lost on him.

"Do you know how sometimes you love someone a lot, and you want to be as close as possible, but you know you're better as friends?"

Karlie nods, serious. Her smile isn't gone from her eyes, though. Taylor reaches out and smooths Karlie's hair down a little bit, and Karlie's upper lip does the thing where it almost disappears because he smile is so bit.

"Well, Harry said. When I said. Oh, I'm so bad at this, I'm sorry-" Taylor gets quieter as she mumbles on, and she can't even meet Karlie's eyes because wow, she didn't think this would be so hard. Karlie takes Taylor's chin and lifts her head up and smiles at her like there is nothing in the world Taylor could say that would drive her away. It's probably true. It is definitely worth a try.

"They kiss though," is what Taylor goes with. It's not the most elegant way to express this, but she figures. "They kiss, because they're so close, and it's comfort and romance and love, but it's not sexual. It's friendship, but with romantic feelings, sometimes. They aren't together all the time, they don't cheat when they have relationships, but they are always. They're always together, I guess. They always love each other. I think it's beautiful, you know? And I want to have that. And I don't want to get tangled up in a relationship right now, and I know my life is chaos and complications and people are going to think stuff, but."

"But." Karlie says, and she's still smiling at Taylor. She's so beautiful.

"But I love you a lot." Taylor says.

"That's good," Karlie says, and smiles even wider. Taylor didn't think that was possible, but it is. "Because I love you a lot, too."

Taylor smiles back.

\---

"Okay, so the man says he gets it."

"Wait really?"

"Yeah. It was kind of funny, because I didn't even have to explain. I just said romantic friendship and he was all nods and smiles and 'Yeah I suspected as much, but I'm cool because you love me toos' and I was surprised but-"

"You picked a good dude, Karlie, like. Whoa. He didn't even make any lesbian jokes or anything?"

"Nah. He just said he wants us to sit down soon, have dinner together. Get to know you a little bit, too. He said, and I'm quoting, Taylor, I shit you not: 'I wanna meet the girl that made my girl fall in love with her.'"

Karlie throws her head back and laughs, and Taylor can't help but join her, it's addictive.

"And he doesn't mind us living together?"

"I don't think so. I think that's why he wants to have dinner, though, too. Just to see if we can all be friends, too? Would you be okay with that?"

Taylor smiles, and nods. She knows Karlie makes good calls when it comes to people, so there's no doubt they'll get along. Karlie grins at her, grabs her hand and twirls Taylor into her arms, into a hug. Karlie gives amazing hugs, probably because she's taller than Taylor, but just as lithe. She can envelop her without taking her breath away. When they part again, Taylor leans up a little but, and Karlie leans down a little bit, and their lips meet. It's chaste, and soft, and comfort and it's a beginning.

\---

Taylor gets her pictures and her music and her videos back through the wonders of tech. Turns out Karlie has really, really good taste in humans, because her boyfriend is a tech nut and he has Taylor's data back in seconds. She saves it onto her new phone, and buys a mini card so she'll be able to save more memories.

Taylor's phone is still covered in cat stickers, but the buttons don't stick anymore. And if it dies, she knows she has a fall back plan in place.

She calls Harry a few days later. She apologises, and expains, and he laughs his slow, gentle laugh, and he sounds happy. She asks about Niall, and tour, and the other boys. He talks about ice cream shops, and visiting her.

She thinks about the four of them in her living room, and there is music in her head, and she smiles.


End file.
